— “A well-constructed method is of the highest importance in all Archaeological explorations, and in the case of the [Roman] Forum, it is more than ordinarily necessary, on the complex character of the excavations. Many strata are represented in the twenty-centuries of eventual life demanding investigation, strata often complicated by natural irregularity of the ground.” (…) “The excavations have gone far enough to show us that the ruined buildings above the ground are but the last chapter of a long period of human history.”

Prof. Arch. Giacomo Boni, in:
“I. Opening meeting – Strata of the Forum,”
The Journal of British and American
Archaeological Society of Rome,
Rome, Vol. III, No. 3, (1901),
pp. 97-8 of pp. 97-100.
— ‘…To expose and exploit this heritage remained the urban policy through the early decades of Roma Capitale, and most emphatically so under the Fascist regime. “Surely, among the great expedients of Mussolini,” commented Baldini in 1932, “that of showing Rome to the Romans will remain on of the most memorable.” To the Romans … and to us. We do not recall enough that what we see and study the architectural history of Rome has been selected, cleaned up and staged for us by the planners and rulers of Third Rome. They were the ones who decided which past buildings were worth of preservation, and which expendable for the sake of progress; how much of excavated antiquity would be retained for show, and how much quickly buried again under paving or new construction. To be a creditable student of Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance and Baroque, should presuppose solid familiarity with modern Rome, its city archives, contemporary newspapers, journals.’

Prof. Arch. Spiro Kostof,
“The Third Rome: The Polemics of Architectural History,”
JSAH 33.3 (1973), p. 240 of pp. 239-250.
— “The architects must learn stratigraphy, and archaeologists must learn how to plan their excavations so as to render them comprehensible,” In other words, architects need to be given some ‘archaeological training,’ while archaeologists need to be versed in language of planning.

Prof. Andrea Carandini,
‘Gli architetti e parchi archeologici a Roma’, Groma. Giornale di architetttura 4 (1999), pp. 20-21,
in: Prof. Daniel Manacorda, ‘Archaeology and the Modern City: Thoughts on Rome (and) Elsewhere,’ p. 213 [pp. 207-15] | note 21.
Cited from: Dorigen Caldwell & Lesley Caldwell (edd.), ‘Rome: continuing encounters between past and past.’
Ashgate Publishing Limited: England (2011).
— “[Early 20th century] Rome became one of the most important places in the world for the development of archaeology. It was an international gathering place for scholars and a site of ongoing excavation. In time, the evolution of the science led to more exacting methods of preserving all historic structures, and the analytic tools that explained the riddles of ancient Rome were used to gain a more accurate understanding of the construction of buildings from subsequent eras. Gradually, the theory, technical disciplines, and practice of architectural conservation became a specialized study, with Rome as its center. The intellectual conflicts of the Renaissance had given birth to a new urban consciousness in which architectural preservation was regarded as a principal determinant of the city’s welfare.”

Prof. Arch. Anthony M. Tung,
“PRESERVING THE WORLD’S GREAT CITIES:
The Destruction and Renewal of the Historic Metropolis,” (2001).
— “An archaeological site survey allows for the detection of stratigraphic relationships, locations of archaeological finds, materials, building and manufacturing techniques and it is an essential stage in the understanding and interpreting of evolutional phases, in space and time. The analysis of the architectural history of an archaeological site cannot be based only on the ‘extrinsic documentation’, derived from iconography and archive-documentary sources. Instead, it should have recourse to the analysis of the preserved architectural text.”

Dr. Arch. Barbara Baldrati,
“Caesar’s Forum, Rome. Architectural Survey, 2003.”
In: ‘Historia Architectura,’ Rome, Italy (2009).
— “The investigations in the area of the Roman Forum began in 1899 under the direction of Giacomo Boni. The methodological resonance of the work carried out by Boni and his attention of the urgent problems for the ‘preservation’ of archaeological buildings [and] whose insightful reflections still remain valid today (Boni 1913 [= ‘Il Metodo,’ 1901; republished in 1913]).”